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Who Is Gloria Morgan?

Our wedding web site allowed guests to contact us with questions about our upcoming nuptials. Early this year, we received this question from Gloria Morgan:

Which of the accommodations have the highest thread count? Renaissance Marriott, Hampton Inn & Suites Asheville Biltmore Village, or Best Western Smoky Mountain Inn?

“Who’s Gloria Morgan?” Michael asked me.

“I have no idea.” We chalked it up to spam.

Over the next few months, though, Ms. Morgan continued emailing us with inane questions.

For the Laurel Ridge Country Club: Shirt/shoes optional or mandatory?

Hi Rebecca and Mitchell! Hope this email is finding you well! Will Laurel Ridge Country Club be supplying two ply toilet paper or should we bring our own?

Hey guys! Sorry to bother you with so many questions! Is the Laurel Ridge Country club Segway accessible? I checked with Dawn but she wasn’t totally sure. Thanks! -GM

What is the anticipated pollen count for Waynesville on June 16, 2018?

I stopped reading them after a while. Just deleted them as soon as I saw her name. But then I realized a spammer targets one person and moves on. Or, usually, a whole group of people. But this person kept up with this for months.

Then I started putting other pieces together:

Our wedding web site included our home address, as we were having a barbecue there the day after the wedding.

The web site also had the time and day of the wedding.

I began to wonder if this person was going to rob us while we were at our own wedding. But I didn’t tell Michael this. He was stressed enough about getting house projects finished before our guests arrived.

Thankfully, I was on such a high on our wedding day that I didn’t think to much about it, though if, upon our return home on our wedding night, our house had been ransacked, I can assure you it’s the first thing I would have told the police.

—

On one table at our wedding, there was a basket that said, “Leave your wishes for the Mr. and Mrs.” The day after our wedding, Michael and I went through them and found one written by none other than Gloria Morgan.

Now it finally kicked in. Someone was playing a joke on us. Someone who had attended our wedding. So instead of a universe of spammers, we now had a mere 110 people as suspects.

But again life prevented us from thinking about it much more. Over the next three weeks we had a “mini-moon” in Savannah, a road trip up to Lake George and Schroon Lake, and then yesterday’s big event: the New York Party–for all the folks in my home state who couldn’t make it to the wedding. And for those that did, but wanted to have good food, good company, and good wedding cake all over again in a much more casual environment.

At Canoe Island Lodge on Lake George. Ignore the pitchfork coming out of my head.

So last night, after everyone left, Michael and I sat down with my parents and my Aunt Janet to open gifts and read all the cards. We had just five left to read when Gloria Morgan struck again. “F*** Gloria Morgan!” I said. In her card, she had enclosed two 20% off coupons from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The first had expired back in 2015. The second had expired in January. (Though everyone knows you can use those coupons long after they expire.)

“Who’s Gloria Morgan?” Dad asked.

We explained the messages, the note at our wedding. Michael and I both searched our emails to quote the questions she’d asked us. (We could only find half of them — we’d deleted the others.)

“So it has to be someone who’s good with technology,” my mother said. “Which leaves me out,” said my father. “Me, too,” said Aunt Janet and my mother, in unison, laughing.

“It has to be someone who was at both parties,” Michael said.

“Or maybe they weren’t at this party — they could have sent the card with someone else,” I said.

“I might have seen Jeffrey put two cards in the basket,” said my mother. “Bethany can be a prankster.” And so it was that we sent a text to my brother Jeffrey and his wife Bethany. They claimed to have no idea what we were talking about. Though Bethany was at a bachelorette party, and admitted she may have been too drunk to understand what was going on.

“Gloria Morgan. GM,” pondered my mother. “MG! Meg Gallo!” proposed Aunt Janet. Or maybe Meg’s boyfriend Jimmy. He was just quiet enough and just funny enough and just unknown enough to maybe have been the guilty party. Michael texted Meg.

Michael: Thanks, Gloria Morgan.

Meg: Who the f is Gloria Morgan?!?!

Michael: We think it’s you.

Silence.

Meg was working in her ice cream store on a gorgeous 75 degree evening, so probably didn’t have time for our nonsense. So I called her boyfriend Jimmy. “Are you Gloria Morgan?” I said. He sounded a little confused. He has my number in his phone, so knew it was me calling. He feigned innocence.

Two hours later, we get a text from Meg: “I don’t know what you are talking about. . . I sling ice cream and don’t have time for shenanigans.”

“It’s obviously someone who keeps stuff around in their house for a long time,” I said, referring to the three-year-old Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupon. My parents certainly qualified on that count, but I hadn’t been in the homes of most of the other people in attendance in quite some time.

We tried Aunt Sharon and Uncle Dominic, starting our calls with, “Is it you, Gloria Morgan?” Both claimed innocence, “but let us know when you find out.” They called back mere minutes later with their suspects. “Your mother or Aunt Janet.”

“Nope, they’re both right here. And not savvy enough with computers to do it,” I said.

“I wish I had thought of this,” said Aunt Janet. At least one of us is definitely stealing this idea.

We tried contacting a few other suspects, but with no luck.

“You’re going to have to write a blog post about it,” my mother said. So voila. Will the real Gloria Morgan please stand up? And if she would like to remain a mystery, here’s what I want to say to her:

Dear Glo (as she signed one of her missives),

I would like to congratulate you on:

Your creativity.

Your consistency.

Your ability to print in a way that I swear was my sister Meg’s handwriting.

Your ability to scare the crap out of me.

Your ability to make a lot of people laugh over this story.

And thanks for not robbing us on our wedding day.

With love,

Mr. and Mrs. Weston

p.s. Michael proofread my note to you and would like add: Stop sending us f’ing messages.